afv, absolutely agree. That's why I pointed the Nexus 10 out in my post. On the other hand, hardware itself is not what sells to the public. It isn't what allowed Apple to completely dominate PMP's and it isn't what allowed them to dominate tablets, up until about now.

The user experience is what propelled them to the top. I'm not talking about the geek-user experience and how they gripe about the "walled garden." I'm talking about Joe Public, who does not care about being locked into a particular ecosystem as long as it has the content that makes them happy. Apple almost never had the best hardware and certainly not "for the dollar." That weakness doesn't seem to affect their market position, at least not until now.

Some day in the future we probably won't mention our hardware brands any more than we mention our toaster brands today. When hardware becomes so cheap, powerful, and ubiquitous we won't have these type of discussions. I expect we'll be debating more about software and 'skins' or other user customization.